


OLD old incomplete payday stuff

by beeapocalypse



Category: PAYDAY (Video Games)
Genre: 2nd Person, Gen, i cant. rlly tag this w anything its a bunch of incomplete loosely connected things hhfghss, thats THE only tag im putting on this bc ik that tense can b a little Wack 4 some ppl, theyve been sitting in my drive 4 FOREVER+i still kind of like them so. lol!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-19 10:04:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19354783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beeapocalypse/pseuds/beeapocalypse
Summary: this is stuff from when i was REALLY into payday thats like. two years old dhshgh ive been getting back into payday+want 2 write actual COMPLETE stuff 4 it so i thot i should post this bc im not gonna revisit it !!these were originally part of a LONG thing i wanted 2 write that focused around dallas+houstons relationship both before+during payday w a major focus on the two years houston was w the gang before the hoxton breakout. it wouldve been moreso abt houston himself+how growing up seeing dallas get into crime pushed him down that same path+how that kind of fucked him up a lot+his resentment towards his brother even as dallas reaches out 2 reconnect after years of silence





	OLD old incomplete payday stuff

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact abt this the doc title is 'its gayday fellows' but on mobile it cuts off perfectly to say 'its gay...fellows'

( _my BIG big payday phase also coincided w my phase where i wrote EVERYTHING in the 2nd person bc i thought it sounded cooler+more artsy dhhgh the flow of certain parts are a little Janky bc of that sorry_ )

 

(tired+bitter bitch!- houston)

 

You aren’t able to sleep without the comforting weight of a pistol under your pillow, the knowledge of a knife resting within reach, supplies necessary for a hasty escape sitting near the door. Even then it could be hard. The constant threat of discovery over your head was oppressive, unavoidable. You had to live out here in the open. The safehouse, that shitty two dollar laundromat, didn’t have enough room for you and even if it did you wouldn’t want to be there. There you were an outsider, the unknown variable, the annoying little brother who had been brought on just because they needed somebody and you were available. 

At least you had a job now. A job outside of hitting up cheap jewelry stores every month, besides the dozens of minimum wage shit jobs you blew through like nothing. Now you were part of a crew,  _ the _ crew. 

It was the ceiling that was subject to your sharp stare this sleepless night as thoughts churned in your mind like rotten butter. They always came back to the same thing. Dallas. Nathan Steele. Your  _ brother _ . He’d watched you silently throughout the entire time you were there at the safehouse for preplanning ( _ a warehouse this time. Shipments collected for Gage) _ , listening and interjecting only when necessary. There was something behind those eyes of his. If you were a sentimental fool, you’d say it was a quiet kind of concern. It had been a sleepless night before and you knew you weren’t running at your best, letting little things slip through that mask of yours.  _ Your _ mask of a dull expression. A little snap of annoyance here, a brief hesitance there, it all added up in his eyes and you hated it. Hated that something lying there behind them. 

There wasn’t anything between the two of you. You’d been running your own heists through CRIME.NET for long enough, let in by the ever mysterious Bain  _ (who, as you learned while running with the crew, was a lot less serious than you had thought of him when just communicating over text and discreet email) _ . Of course you’d heard the news about the clown caught by the FBI, everyone had. There wasn’t anything to make of it- A lesson in caution maybe, but you didn’t pay too much attention to it. But then Bain had called you up with  _ him _ on the line, asking for you to come trailing after him like some lost petulant puppy finally returning home.

And because you were just so desperate for it, you did without question. 

It had been spurn of the moment, driven by the shock of hearing that gruff voice claiming to be your brother and the offer to be a part of something  _ bigger _ . That fucker had you hook line and sinker before you even knew what had hit you and there wasn’t any form of rejection from you. 

Laying like this on your too stiff bed, shifting to stare at your window with shutters drawn defensively with eyes that felt like they were about to roll out of your head, you wished that things could be different. Just- Not like they were before between the two of you  _ (you would die before you went back to that, you’d go down kicking and screaming and  _ **_spitting_ ** _ ) _ , but something new. Better. It was apparent in what you’ve heard from quiet mutters and drunken stories, that the man you wore the mask of had been an important part of the crew. There was a bond deeper than anything you’d ever had between the four of them, carrying on even in Hoxton’s absence. You wished you could have  _ that _ . Terrible clawing jealousy would fill your gut whenever Nathan-  _ Dallas’ _ eyes lingered on the mask, when Wolf would let a nickname slip without thought, when Chains would almost reach out for a friendly touch before stopping. You weren’t supposed to be here, as much as you longed for it.

Because, when it came down to it, what were you to the crew? Dallas’ little brother  _ (the one he never brought up apparently, if Chains’ apparent disbelief of you existence at first was to go by, thanks a lot Nathan)  _ who was there to replace someone more important than what you would ever be to any of them. Some weird fellow who crept around silently and hardly ever spoke. Easy to forget when you weren’t actively engaging with them. Dallas must see you as a ghost. A ghost of the life the two of you once shared, a ghost that was strictly necessary for the meantime but not in the long run. 

With that bitter thought you reach up to cradle the worn grip of the ever close by knife as you roll over onto the side and direct your stare at the wall now. This just- You couldn’t get everything. So you don’t have any connection to this new crew, so what? At least you weren’t starving on minimum wage anymore. Stop being such a sentimental bitch about it. 

 

( _ this was more a tone setter+me trying 2 figure out how 2 write houston than anything else lol i projected a Lot onto him+his feelings that wouldve carried on throughout the entire thing if it was completed _ )

 

(dallas trying 2 flex but getting flexed on himself lol- dallas)

 

If there was one thing you saw right as soon as your brother stepped into your shitty two dollar laundromat of a safehouse, it was that he was an absolute bitch to try to get a read on. 

You weren’t expecting anything near the cliche tearful dramatic events that were the staple of every reunion in media, you weren’t that disillusioned. But you expected more than the cold blank stare that the stranger who walked into the laundromat leveled at you. Of course he would single you out. 

Out of the trio who were there to greet him, you were logically the only one who could be you. Wolf was too broad, a touch too tall, his posture more slouched than what your little brother would know to look for. Chains was, beyond the obvious skin tone difference, too militant in his standing. No, those cold eyes settled right on you. 

At the time, you had thought it was a smart idea to wear the whole outfit to greet him. Masks, gloves, suits. Stopped short just of the guns. Thought it would give you a professional look ( _ since you were professionals, dammit, and you needed your little brother to know that, to see what you had made _ ), maybe awe the man just a bit. But when he strode into your shitty safehouse in a fresh pressed suit, polished dress shoes clicking cleanly on cracked tiles, and looked right at you, something about it made you feel stupid. Like you were grandstanding. Showing off. Trying to prove yourself. 

“Dallas.” He still had that stupid accent. That accent that you ripped out of your voice and ground under heel in an attempt to destroy any reminder of how you got into crime. Almost drew out his words more than it would warrant, and something about that made your jaw clench. And then you process what he had said. That he did  _ not _ say Nathan. 

If you were going to get a sign of what was to come, that would be the best signifier. You inhale, stomp down whatever weak,  _ unnecessary _ emotion you might’ve felt at that, and hold out a hand. Put on your crew chief voice. “Hoxton.”

 

( _ dallas+hox are still THE hardest heisters 4 me to write idk why they trip me up so much dgshdgh this was me trying to get a grip on his kind of hardass but a little sentimental attitude i think _ )

  
  


(setting up chains+houst friendship- chains)

 

You had been friends with Hoxton.  _ Still _ friends with him, even if the man was locked away at the moment. Laughed at his dry humor, appreciated what he did for the team, even put up with his bullshit. He had watched your back and you did the same. Until he was tossed away into Hazelton and Dallas’ little brother, some kid with a dumb accent and eyes that never seemed to warm up, replaced him. 

You saw that he was out of his element, unable to integrate with the crew. Wolf avoided him like the plague ( _ you couldn’t blame him, not with how close he was to Hoxton and the burn of betrayal he must feel whenever he sees that mask staring at him coldly _ ) and Dallas acted like he was walking on eggshells around him ( _ you didn’t know their history- didn’t even know the kid existed until Dallas was proposing he be brought onto the crew- but there was animosity there, clear as day _ ). 

They both harbored guilts and preconceptions. Yeah, you felt shitty for what happened to Hoxton, but you knew that it wasn’t the new guy’s fault. You didn’t wonder at his past though. Didn’t ever ask what got him into crime or why him and Dallas seemed so tense around each other. Common decency, since the man never went asking about you. 

Since the other two were so fucking stiff around the man, it fell to your shoulders to offer a hand. Do the motions to get him oriented in Payday, show him around the shoebox of a safehouse you had, get him properly kitted out. Dallas gave him the mask though.

He didn’t come completely unprepared to the crew. When you asked about weaponry that first day, he’d reached into his coat and took out a silenced pistol, swapping it to his other hand to grab a set of lock picks as well. Both were held up and offered for your inspection. Well cared for if a bit worn down from their long use. You asked about anything else, any tricks up his sleeve, and he pulled out a bobby pin he had slipped into his dress shirt cuff. Didn’t even laugh when he handed it over and took in your bemused amusement, just stared steadily with those cold eyes. 

So he was a bit quiet. Wolf got like that too, sometimes. You weren’t going to let that stop you, you could talk enough for both. It was an effort of a few days to go through what you personally had on hand in the safehouse and the catalogues from Gage to get him fitted with the right pistol. The old one had done servicably and would’ve lasted a bit while longer, but it was just that. Old. Joining the crew was supposed to be the start of a new chapter of his life or some sentimental bullshit like that. 

The lockpicks were kept upon his insistence. Said they had gotten him through thick and thin. You let him keep them, gave him an ECM for good measure. Showed him how it worked on the single practice safe you guys had in the safehouse. 

 

( _ chains+houston friendship is THE most powerful concept i rlly like the idea of the two of them being able 2 connect+be dumb buddies lol ik that isnt rlly shown here bc its Brooding but listen. they play smash bros together- houston mains fox (closet furry)+chains mains cloud (sword babey!!!) _

 

(week after hox breakout??/dallas realizing houston exists- houston)

 

Damn the Payday gang, damn Hoxton, and damn your fucking brother. Damn Nathan Steele to hell, you think deliriously,  _ vehemently _ , as you struggle to loosen your grip on the bathroom sink. You hope he fucking rots, burns in hell and never knows anything good again. He didn’t fucking deserve any of it, even rotting was too much for him. Anything was.

It had started simply. You were at the safehouse for a preplanning session ( _ that was all you ever went there for,  _ **_Hoxton_ ** _ was there now and you couldn’t find the simple pleasure of company anymore without risk of that venomous fucker) _ , standing as far away from anyone as possible around the table, huddling in on yourself and trying your hardest to ignore the steely glare directed at you from across the table. You felt  _ miserable  _ there now. You didn’t belong anymore, your use had come and passed. 

It was a loud heist anyways, what they were looking over, so you couldn’t even contribute to that. A slimy rat like Hoxton should know how to sneak around better than you anyways. The Payday gang wasn’t the inexperienced group when it came to stealth that they had been when you first arrived, they’ve studied well and taken notes from your book. 

By the end of it all everyone was scrambling to get out of the room, driven by Hoxton’s sneering anger and contempt that came with Dallas’ answer to the question he had asked.  _ You’re bringing me along on this bloody heist, right? _ You’d resisted the urge to snort when you registered what he had said. Go out, on a heist? The man was limping from the hole in his thigh, emaciated and clearly still suffering from the cold grip of Hazelton, and the FBI was tearing apart D.C. to try and find him. You would go in his stead, something you quietly accepted with a nod while he started hissing and spitting in viritol. The replacement, once again replacing the man who was supposed to replace him now. 

Wolf was the one to shepherd Hoxton out and you didn’t even have the heart to wonder at the connection between the two anymore. Chains quickly followed after a muttered cuss and a glance at Dallas, footsteps tapping with restrained urgency. And then it was just the two of you. Dallas was turned towards the wall with arms crossed, brows furrowed in that contemplative look he always got when faced with something he didn’t want to deal with, and you briefly entertained the thought of slipping out while he was lost in thought. Silence wouldn’t be a problem, you knew where every little spot on the floor creaked and could leave without even a hiss of displaced air. Silence was your job, was how you got the money to eat before the crew, was the only fucking thing-

“He’s not as bad as you must think he is.” Dallas’ voice stops you before you can even start and it takes all that you have to not turn your head towards him. Don’t acknowledge him. This will all go faster if you just don’t acknowledge him. 

“Jim is just,” He paused for a moment before letting out a heavy sigh, “Readjusting right now. He was in there for a long time.” 

There. Hazelton. Dallas tiptoed around the two year lack of Hoxton like a minefield and hardly ever brought it up. Of course he’d do so to defend him though. Can’t let his brother get bad thoughts about such a  _ pleasant _ man.

You were speaking before you even thought about it. “Sure thing. Look, if any changes in the plan come up, give me a call and I can come over. I’m going home.” 

 

( _ i dont rlly remember how this was gonna continue?? i think it was like. dallas asked houston if he was alright suddenly+started trying to pry since now that hox is out dallas is actually Noticing how his little brother might b a little. messed up and houston Really doesnt take well to that??? this is literal years old lol i think i stopped writing this 4 like. a week then straight up didnt know how to continue it so it went on to go stale in my drive for 2 years dhghds _ )

**Author's Note:**

> im sorry this stuff is like. ACTUALLY incomprehensible probably hdhsdgh oops !!
> 
> im trying 2 write more stuff 4 payday rn!! i just. dont have any actual writing discipline w/o a deadline hhfdh but i might revisit this concept of a long form houston&dallas thing w more of a focus on how being pushed 2 a life of crime to survive affected houston+how it affects his interactions w his brother


End file.
